United Nations - Human Rights

Holocaust Remembrance: A Commitment to Truth and Lest We Forget

AKAHNJOC — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 20:18:24 +0000

Holocaust Remembrance
Lest We Forget

These portraits show lives that were lived before the Holocaust.

The photographs capture moments of kindness and compassion, of life enjoyed, and the intimate connections that existed before the Holocaust.

The images stand as stark evidence of the deep loss and destruction wrought by the Nazis and their racist collaborators during the Holocaust.

The photographs reflect the humanity of the victims of the Holocaust. They ask us to remember our common humanity, and our responsibility to defend the right of all to live with dignity and in peace.

Beloved

Two photographs give us a glimpse of a little boy, much loved by his family.

Teri Zinger and her son, Yehonatan, in Rozsnyo, former Czechoslovakia, 1936. Credit: Copyright Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Archival Signature 10011/4. Courtesy of Yocheved Chapnik.

The Nazis murdered Yehonatan and his mother, Teri, in the gas chamber in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940–1945) on 15 June 1944. The fate of Yehonatan’s grandparents is not known.

Yehonatan sits on his grandfather, Itzhak Haim Moshe Lemberger’s knee as his grandfather and grandmother, Yoheved Yolin, encourage him to look at the camera. They sit in the sunlight. Rozsnyo, former Czechoslovakia, 1936. Credit: Copyright Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Archival Signature 10011/5. Courtesy of Yocheved Chapnik.

Brothers and sisters - the Meyer family

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #32868. Courtesy of Yaakov and Jeannette Meyer. Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The four Meyer children pose on the balcony of their home in 1934 in Bonn, Germany. From left to right: Yaakov, Erika, Herbert, and Theresia. Seated next to Theresia is her husband. Yaakov, the youngest of the four Meyer siblings, was born in 1928. His oldest sibling, Theresia, was born in 1914; brother Herbert in 1918; and sister Erika in 1921.

In 1934, the children’s father, Albert Meyer, was murdered by Nazi thugs. The family fell into poverty. Theresia, her husband, and Erika left for England – Theresia to work as a nurse, and Erika as a maid.

Yaakov left on a Kindertransport in March 1939. His mother, Karolina, took him to the train station. He never saw her again.

Herbert was murdered with his wife in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945).

Brothers and sisters - the Kornhauser family

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #14678. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Provenance: George Pick.

These photographs show the family of Pal and Aranka (Shatz) Kornhauser.

The first photograph was taken between 1929-1930. It shows the four Kornhauser siblings posing on the beach at Lake Balaton, near Budapest, Hungary. Big brother Endre Kornhauser holds Janos and Tamas in his arms. Below them is their sister, Lilly.

A formal family photograph taken in 1931 in Budapest, [Pest-PilisSolt-Kiskun], Hungary. Pictured from left to right are mother Aranka (Shatz) with Janos, Endre and Lilly. Their father, Pal, sits next to Lilly and Tamas leans next to Pal.

Pal Kornhauser was a lawyer and served as the legal adviser to the German ambassador in Budapest from 1940 to 1944. He was deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz and killed in the spring of 1944.

Endre, his eldest son, was murdered in 1943.

Over 100 members of the extended Kornhauser family perished during the Holocaust.

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 14670. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Provenance: George Pick.

Friends

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 16713. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Courtesy Yad Vashem.

This photograph taken before 1941 captures a glimpse of the friendship of a group of girls. They are in a yard in the town of Eisiskes, Lithuania.

None of the girls survived the Holocaust.

Every girl in this photograph was murdered by the mobile killing squads – the Einsatzgruppen – on 25–26 September 1941. Of Eisiskes’s 3,500 Jews, only a few dozen survived the Holocaust.

This exhibition was created by the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme, established by Member States of the United Nations through General Assembly Resolution A/RES/60/7 in 2005.

Credits: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center

“Please don’t forget us... If you survive, tell the world what happened.”

- Nesse Godin, survivor of Stutthof concentration camp, Germany and a death march

Oral history with Nesse Godin, Washington, D.C. 14 December 1995. In Beth B. Cohen, Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007, p. 157. Courtesy of Beth B. Cohen.

The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme

The United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously to establish the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme in 2005 to “mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide”. The Outreach Programme is an expression of the United Nations’ commitment to counter antisemitism, Holocaust denial and distortion, and to protect the right of all people to live with dignity and in peace.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7 in 2005 designated 27 January as the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and established the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme. Resolutions adopted in 2007 and in 2022 reiterated the United Nations’ commitment to counter antisemitism and Holocaust distortion and denial.

General Assembly Hall (UN Photo)

Survivors who graciously shared their testimonies with the Outreach Programme:

Ms. Lyubov Abramovich
Ms. Inge Auerbacher
Mr. Yehuda Bacon
Ms. Elizabeth Bellak
Mr. Maurice Blik
Ms. Ella Blumenthal
Judge Thomas Buergenthal
Dr. Irene Butter
Mr. Boris Feldman
Ms. Rena Finder

Ms. Ruth Glasberg Gold
Mr. Zoni Weisz
Mr. Max Glauben
Mr. Jacques Grishaver
Ms. Nesse Godin
Mr. Kurt Goldberger
Ms. Margarete Goldberger
Mr. Yoram Gross
Mr. Pinchas Gutter
Ms. Frances Irwin
Ms. Vered Kater
Mr. Roman Kent
Mr. Serge Klarsfeld
Ms. Gerda Klein
Mr. Noah Klieger
Ms. Agnes Kory
Professor Robert Krell
Ms. Jona Laks
Mr. Arthur Langerman
Congressman Tom Lantos
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau
Ms. Eva Lavi
Ms. Johanna Liebman
Mr. Leo Lowy
Mr. David Mermelstein
Mr. Dumitru Miclescu

Judge Theodor Meron
Ms. Joanna Millan
Ms. Marianne Muller
Mr. Shraga Milstein
Mr. Leon Moed
Professor Mordecai Paldiel
Mr. Alex Moskovic
Mr. Christian Pfeil
Ms. Hella Pick
Mr. Jack Polak
Ms. Rita Prigmore
Mr. Haim Roet
Mr. Leonid Rozenberg
Ms. Irene Shashar
Rabbi Arthur Schneier
Dr. Nechama Tec
Ms. Selma Tennenbaum Rossen
Dr. Edith Tennenbaum Shapiro
Mr. Marian Turski
Madame Simone Veil
Ms. Agnes Vertes
Mr. Zoni Weisz
Ms. Marta Wise

The Global Impact of the Holocaust

A warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism, and prejudice."

- United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/76/250

The United Nations was established in response to the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Holocaust has had a profound impact on International Human Rights Law, resulting in the United Nations’ adoption of foundational documents in 1948: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights represents the universal recognition that basic rights and fundamental freedoms are inherent to all human beings, inalienable and equally applicable to everyone, and that every one of us is born free and equal in dignity and rights. Whatever our nationality, place of residence, gender, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status, the international community on 10 December 1948 made a commitment to upholding dignity and justice for all of us. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, or Genocide Convention, is an international treaty that criminalizes genocide and obligates state parties to enforce its prohibition. It was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1948.

The World That Was

Only one-third of Jewish men, women and children in Europe survived the Holocaust.

Mother and son, Henrietta and Ivan Rechts. 1939 Former Czechoslovakia. They were subsequently deported to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, where they perished. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #47570. Courtesy of Gabriella Reitler Rosberger, Source Record ID: Collections: 2004.7. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Mother with daughter on swing, Zwickau, Germany, circa 1937. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 64847. Courtesy of Shoshana Loeb. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

We had a family life. I had four grandparents. Family...there were a lot of certainties. But the certainties ended when I was fourteen years old. They never came back again, of course.”

- Frieda Menco-Brommet (1925–2019). Oral history conducted by Debórah Dwork, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 1986. Debórah Dwork, “Children With A Star” (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p.7

Two Jewish brothers on vacation in Italy, April 1935. On the left is Paul Barber and his child, and on the right Gyorgy Barber with his infant. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #17193. Courtesy of Charles & Herma Ellenboghen Barber. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Jews had lived as a minority in Europe for two thousand years before Hitler and his Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933. Maintaining Jewish and national identities, Jews were diverse. Some were pious, some secular; some were poor, some working class, others middle class.

After the Nazi regime took control, all Jews caught in their web were at risk. By 1945, six million – two-thirds of Europe's prewar Jewish population – were annihilated, and the life and culture that had existed for millennia irrevocably ruptured.

The Nazis persecuted Europe’s Roma and Sinti communities, murdering some 500,000 - one-third of Europe’s Roma and Sinti population - by war’s end.

Portrait of two Jewish sisters, Budapest, Hungary, circa 1930–1935. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #45560. Courtesy of Provenance: Gabor Kalman Source Record ID: Collections: 2001.335. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Roma family, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany, 1936. Despite this photograph having been taken in the garden of the "Racial-Hygienic and Heredity Research Centre" in the Reich Health Office, Berlin, and the identity and intention of the photographer unknown, the close-knit nature of the family and their affection and joy shine bright. Credit: Bundesarchiv, R 165 Bild-244-59/Photographer unknown.

Sophie Kimelman poses with her twin cousins holding their dolls, Lvov, Poland, circa 1929–1930. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #65589. Courtesy of Dr. Sophie Kimelman-Rosen. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Children from the Beit Ahavah Children’s Home in class, Berlin, Germany, circa 1922–1930. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #48873. Courtesy of Ayelet Bargur. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Josef Cohn and his grandsons, Leo and Haim, study the Talmud, Hamburg, Germany, circa 1932–1933. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #93800. Courtesy of Noemi Cassutto. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Teenagers at a Purim party, Frankfurt, Germany, circa 1933–1936. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #56413. Courtesy of Walter Wolff. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Elly and Henri Rodrigues (front center) at a birthday party in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1936. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #96361. Courtesy of Carolyn Stewart. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A group of young Greek Jews in front of a tobacco store, Salonika, Greece, circa 1930-1939. Among those pictured are Yehuda and Miriam Beraha (front row, left). Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #42481. Courtesy of Jack Beraha, Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Members of the ice hockey team of the Jewish sport's club, Hagibor. Prague, former Czechoslovakia, circa 1925–1930. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #65440. Courtesy of Andrea Renner. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A Jewish youth band performs in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, 1932. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 25106. Courtesy of Gavra Mandil, Source Record ID: Collections: 2002.158. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Fubini family poses by a riverbank, Torino, Italy, circa 1930–1939. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #49040. Courtesy of Franco Fubini. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Members of a French-Hungarian Romani musical band, Lyon, France, circa 1920–1930. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #33341. Courtesy of Rita Prigmore, Source Record ID: Collections: 2004.226.1 Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Greta Stoessler Engel stands next to her horse, Austria, circa 1920–1930. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #42064. Courtesy of Katie Altenberg. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A Jewish family walks down a street in Bialystok, Poland, 22 June 1938. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Photo Archives #79262. Courtesy of Ewa Kracowska. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Holocaust (1933-1945)

Identification and Segregation during the Second World War

The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, ideologically driven persecution and murder of six million Jews across Europe and half a million Roma and Sinti by Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and other racist states. Nazi ideology built upon pre-existing antisemitism and antigypsyism/anti-Roma prejudice. The Nazi regime dismantled the democratic institutions of government and used state mechanisms to put its racist ideology into practice and to justify its abuses of human rights.

Nazi racism demanded the murder of people with disabilities, the forced sterilization of Germans of African descent, the murder of Soviet prisoners of war, and the enslavement of Slavs. The Nazis persecuted all they deemed as regime opponents including political dissidents, those identified as homosexual and lesbian, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But in the Nazi imagination, Jews loomed as the primary threat. The Nazi government enacted its racist antisemitic agenda and, after 1941, embarked upon the murder of every Jewish child, woman, and man.

This notice states, “This beautiful city Hersbruck, on this gorgeous spot on the Earth, was created only for Germans, and not for Jews. Jews are therefore not welcome here.” Caption: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #74592. Courtesy of John Howell. Source Record ID: Collections: 2002.216.1

Once in power, the Nazis began the process of social and economic disenfranchisement and segregation of Jews in Germany, thus facilitating the growing abuse.

From 1934 on, signs prohibiting Jews from using public spaces including libraries, swimming pools, theatres, cinemas, and park benches appeared throughout Germany and, after the 1938 Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Germany, in Austria as well.

Once in my lifetime I want to still have a whole loaf of bread. That was my dream.”

– Itka Zygmuntowicz (1926–2020), Survivor of Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940–1945) RG-50.030*0435, Oral history interview with Itka Zygmuntowicz, (1926-2020). Oral History Interviews of the Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

A young baby, Marianne Harpuder (now Price) lies on a park bench in Berlin marked with a “J” to indicate it is only for Jews, 1938, Berlin, Germany. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #62547. Courtesy of Ralph Harpuder.

Suddenly, even my best friends didn’t know me anymore. Antisemitic signs appeared in cities and towns exhorting citizens to view Jews as ‘the Other’”

– Heinz Sandelowski (1921–2000), Rastenburg, Germany, 1933. Oral history conducted by Beth B. Cohen, Providence, R.I., 7 April 1994. Courtesy of Beth B. Cohen.

Class portrait of Jewish children attending Carlebach School in Leipzig, Germany. In 1935, Nazi segregation laws prohibited Jewish children from attending state schools. In Leipzig, the Carlebach School was only Jewish day school available. Among those pictured are Irene Mayer, Esther Heppner, Paula Grunewald, Akiva Zwick and Hans Koch. Erich Petruschke (later Peters) is next to the teacher. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #67856. Courtesy of Irene Lewitt. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Provenance: Irene Lewitt.

In 1935, the Nuremburg Laws provided a racist basis to classify Jews, legalized racist antisemitism, and stripped Jews of their citizenship. The racist laws declared that Jewish people could not have so-called German or Aryan blood, and therefore could not be German citizens. The Laws outlawed marriage or sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, and further excluded Jews from daily life.

By late 1938, the German State cancelled German Jews’ passports, requiring them to carry new identity cards showing their heritage by the addition of the name Sara or Israel, and with a stamped letter “J.”

Both these additions are evident in Ellen Markiewicz’s passport below:

Ellen Markiewicz and her brother managed to leave Germany in 1939 on a Kindertransport, a rescue effort that brought thousands of children from Germany, Austria, and former Czechoslovakia to France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Britain. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 61853B. Courtesy of Ellen Gerber. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

After Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Jews were ordered to wear identifying badges. These badges were decreed in every occupied country. In 1941 this law was extended to Germany. The Nazis intended the badges to humiliate the Jews, and to facilitate the identification of Jews for roundups to ghettos and deportation to camps.

A few examples of identification badges imposed on Jewish people by Nazi decree.

Badges Jews were forced to wear in France, circa 1942 - 1945. Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #1991.70.3. Courtesy of Claudine Cerf. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Badges Jews were forced to wear in Berlin, Germany, circa 1942 - 1945. Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #1991.141.5. Courtesy of Fritz Gluckstein. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Badges Jews were forced to wear in Sveti Ivan Zelina, Croatia, Yugoslavia, circa 1942 - 1945. Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #2002.432.3. Courtesy of Theodora Basch Klayman. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Badges Jews were forced to wear in Belgium. Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #65977. Courtesy of Michel Reynders. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Political “Enemies”

The Nazi government set out to dismantle democracy including shutting down the free press and perverting the legal system. The regime used terror and a network of concentration camps to impose and maintain control. The Nazis banned trade unions and persecuted all whom they considered political opponents including Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Helene Gotthold with her children, Gisela and Gerd. Helene, a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for her anti-Nazi views and beheaded in the Ploetzensee prison, 8 December 1944. Her children survived. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives # 20499. Courtesy of Martin Tillmans. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Source Record ID: Collections: 1991.204.

State harassment of men labelled as homosexual, became increasingly brutal. Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim was arrested, humiliated, tortured and forcibly castrated. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives ID5364. Courtesy of Friedrich-Paul von Groszheim, Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Nazi persecution of LGBTIQ+

The Nazi regime radicalized existing laws against male homosexuality persecuting tens of thousands of men and deporting up to 15,000 to concentration camps. The Nazis viewed homosexuality as a threat to a growing "German race". If homosexual men were also identified as Jewish, they faced persecution as Jews and often immediate deportation. While the regime primarily targeted gay men, lesbian women and transgender individuals were also at risk of being reported by neighbours, colleagues, or even family members.

Persons with Disabilities

The Nazis targeted people with disabilities, considering them a threat to so-called racial purity and a financial burden. Nazi propaganda encouraged the German population to view people with disabilities in this way. Between 1939 and 1945, doctors and nurses murdered nearly 300, 000 people with disabilities through starvation, lethal injection, mass shooting or gassing.

Studio portrait of Lotte and Robert Wagemann, c. 1942-1943, Berlin, Germany. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #71708.

Robert Wagemann was born on 23 May 1937 in Mannheim, Germany to parents who were Jehovah's Witnesses. The Nazis persecuted Jehovah’s Witnesses because they refused to take a loyalty oath to Hitler and to serve in the German army. Robert was born shortly after his mother’s release from imprisonment for distributing pamphlets denouncing the Nazi regime. Damage to Robert’s hip during birth went unnoticed until he was almost four. After an unsuccessful attempt to replace Robert’s hip, Robert’s mother Lotte was summoned to bring him for a medical examination. Lotte overheard the doctors discussing “euthanizing” Robert. “Euthanasia” was a Nazi euphemism for murder. Realizing the doctors intended to kill Robert because of his disability, Lotte fled with him to his paternal grandparents.

On his first day of school Robert refused to salute Hitler. His teachers alerted the police. Robert and his mother escaped again and spent the remainder of the war on Robert’s maternal grandparents’ farm.

Robert survived. 10,000 German children with disabilities did not, murdered by Nazi doctors and nurses.

Roma and Sinti

Romani peoples in Europe suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. The Nazis viewed Roma as a "biological" threat to the so-called “superior Aryan” people. Building on centuries-old-anti-Roma prejudice and violence, the Nazis stripped Roma and Sinti of their rights, and criminalized and persecuted them. Under the July 1933 “Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Defects,” physicians sterilized Roma and Sinti against their will. Roma and Sinti were subjected to segregation, classification by “racial scientists”, and internment in concentration and labour camps.

We had no rights in any aspect of our lives. We could no longer attend school. We could only go shopping in the hours between 11:00 and 12:00. We could not go to any dances, cinemas, or any public events. In short, we were outcasts. I was then 13 years old.”

- Hermine Horvath, a Roma woman from Burgenland in Austria, describing the situation for her family after the German annexation of Austria in March 1938. Horvath gave this testimony to the Wiener Library in the 1950s.

Racism, persecution, and terror

The Nazi regime’s racism extended to include other minorities deemed inferior especially Roma and Sinti and Germans of African descent. Persecution took many forms, including forced sterilization and incarceration in a concentration camp.

Joseph Muscha Mueller was born in 1932 in Germany to Roma parents. In 1942 two strangers removed him from his classroom. He was forcibly sterilized and deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. Joseph was smuggled out and survived the remainder of the war hiding in a garden shed. Credit: Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ID Cards.

Radicalization of Persecution

The November Pogrom (9–10 November 1938) was the first instance of state-organized violence against Jews in Germany, German-annexed Austria and the Sudetenland (part of former Czechoslovakia) and marked a radicalization of Nazi antisemitic policy.

Synagogues, businesses owned by Jews, and Jews’ homes were burned and ransacked. 30,000 men were arrested. Hundreds died. Those who found a way to leave Germany were released.

Emigration from Nazi Germany became more urgent but increasingly difficult, as country after country tightened its immigration policies. Some Jews escaped from Germany to nearby countries where they were trapped when the Second World War began. By 1941, approximately two-thirds of German and Austrian Jews had fled their homelands.

A Jewish-owned business in Berlin, Germany destroyed in the November Pogrom, 1938. 10 November 1938. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #86838. Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Exterior view of the old synagogue in Aachen, Germany. The old synagogue was built in 1862. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #29814. Courtesy of Stadtarchiv Aachen Copyright Public Domain.

View of the old synagogue in Aachen, Germany, after its destruction during the November Pogrom, 1938. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #29818. Courtesy of Stadtarchiv Aachen Copyright Public Domain.

Listen here to the impact of the November 1938 Pogrom on 8-year-old Arthur Schneier.

Arthur Schneier. Credit: Rabbi Arthur Scheneir

A bedroom of a flat in Vienna, Austria (taken 10 November 1938). Courtesy Wiener Library and Stadtarchiv Nurnberg.

Listen here to Professor Debórah Dwork describe the impact of the November 1938 Pogrom.

Sites of incarceration and forced labour under the Nazi regime and its allies, 1933-1945

From 1933 to 1945, the Nazi regime and its allies created approximately 44,000 sites to confine Jews, political prisoners, POWs, Roma and Sinti, and many others. The map above shows 4,231 locations with one or more sites, including those in North Africa – less than 10% of the total estimated by 2023 by researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. All camps and ghettos in the maps were established by the German forces or Axis-aligned powers. The camps shown in North Africa were established by occupation forces.

Camps (orange dots) could be the size of a city or a single building. Wehrmacht sites (black dots), like some camps, held both POWs and civilians. Ghettos (purple dots) could fill a Jewish neighbourhood or be just a field or barn. At the six SS death camps (red squares – Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka), millions of civilians were murdered, often immediately upon arrival.

Whatever their form, these places collectively held millions of people against their will in brutal, inhumane conditions.

Disclaimer: The designations employed, including geographical names, and the presentation of the materials in the present publication, including the citations, maps and bibliography, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the United Nations concerning the names and legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries and do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.

Credit: Present-day physical geography data courtesy of Natural Earth. Projection: Europe Albers Equal Area Conic. Main map and graph by Maja Kruse and Anne Kelly Knowles, 2024. Copyright Anne Kelly Knowles and Maja Kruse. Map of Auschwitz complex and subcamps by Maja Kruse, 2024. Copyright Maja Kruse. This map was originally developed for Sarah Cushman’s forthcoming book, Women in Auschwitz.

Auschwitz camp system

The concentration camp known as Auschwitz has long been a symbol of the Holocaust in its entirety. What many people do not realize is that “Auschwitz” was in fact a complex of three main camps as well as a system of several dozen subcamps. Nor do many know that this system was one of many camp and ghetto systems that in total spanned the width and breadth of Europe. What the Germans called the Auschwitz “Zone of Interest” (Interessengebiet) lay between the Soła and Vistula rivers. It was centered on Auschwitz I, a concentration camp that opened in January 1940 near the Polish town of Oswieçim. (The Nazis cleared the town of its Polish residents to isolate the camp.) The 25-squaremile zone included Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where the Nazis murdered approximately one million Jews and thousands of Romani people, and Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a site intended to manufacture synthetic rubber for industry and the military. At these three main camps and six local subcamps, shown above, tens of thousands of prisoners labored and struggled to survive, including men, women, and children from across Europe: Jews, Romani, political prisoners, Soviet POWs, and German “anti-social” prisoners. The small map in the bottom left shows the location of all 39 subcamps in the Auschwitz system. No still map can convey the dynamism of this system. During the early 1940s it was constantly expanding, adding new sites, structures, purposes, and prisoner populations. These changes reflected the shifting priorities of war and genocide.

Both prisoner experiences and the places they were held were incredibly varied. Some prisoners endured captivity for weeks, others for years; some were shunted from place to place. The sites did not all exist at once, and many facilities changed purpose and location over time.

Seeking Refuge

The Frank family: (left to right): Margot, Otto, Anne, and Edith Frank, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 1941. Courtesy of the Anne Frank Fonds, Basel, Switzerland.

The story of the Frank family illustrates the vulnerability of refugees seeking safety from the Nazis. Otto and Edith Frank and their two young daughters, Margot and Anneliese -Anne - left for Amsterdam, the Netherlands shortly after the Nazis came to power in Germany.

For a few years, it seemed the family would be safe. Otto grew increasingly worried about the stability of the region, and in 1938 applied to the United States for visas for his family. American restrictive immigration policies, and the changing events in Europe destroyed that hope. Germany attacked the Netherlands in 1940 and Otto’s visa applications were destroyed. Unable to leave, Otto created a hiding place in the secret annex of his business’s warehouse. The annex provided shelter for over two years for the Frank family, the van Pels family, and Fritz Pfeffer. They were betrayed in August 1944. Of those who had hidden in the annex, only Otto survived the Holocaust.

Ghettoization

Child in the Lodz ghetto, Poland, circa 1940–1944. Credit: Photograph by Mendel Grossman (1913-1945) who died on a death march, 30 April 1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #24635, Courtesy of Moshe Zilbar, Source Record ID: Collections: 2005.214. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Our bread ration has been reduced and vegetables don’t arrive anymore. Hunger is ever more terrifying.”

– Dawid Sierakowiak, (1924–1943), entry dated 18 March 1942.

The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto. 18 March 1942. Courtesy of Oxford University Press.

The start of the Second World War in September 1939 was a decisive moment in Nazi anti-Jewish policy. After the Germans conquered Eastern Europe, they concentrated Jews in restricted areas called ghettos; in western Europe they incarcerated Jews in transit camps.

Over 1,100 ghettos existed across Europe, with the largest in Poland. Most ghettos were situated on rail lines that facilitated later mass deportations to killing centers. In many ghettos, Jews sought to maintain vestiges of prewar life, despite squalid conditions. Nonetheless, conditions were a torturous means of annihilation through starvation, slave labour, disease, and executions.

Deportation

Germany and its racist allies began deporting Jews and Roma and Sinti from the ghettos and transit camps to killing centers that had been constructed in occupied Poland.

Rounding up the children from the Lodz ghetto, Poland, for deportation to the Chelmno death camp, Poland, September 1942. None of the children survived. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #50328. Courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowej. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Jewish women and children from Subcarpathian Rus awaiting selection after arrival at Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945), May 1944. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #77255. Courtesy of Yad Vashem (Public Domain). Source Record ID: FA 268/055. Published Source: The Auschwitz Album – Peter Hellman, Random House. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Anna Maria “Setella” Steinbach, a young Romani girl, stares out of a cattle car used for deportation from Westerbork transit camp, the Netherlands, 1944. Setella was murdered with her mother and siblings, in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940–1945). She was nine years old. Credit: Copyright Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Archival Signature 1475/30.

Systematic mass murder

Mass murder began in June 1941 with Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. As German troops moved into the Soviet Union, mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) followed, massacring Jews in more than 1,500 villages and towns, often in broad daylight in the presence of local witnesses. Nazi policy now encompassed the implementation of the “Final Solution” the Nazi euphemism given for the policy of annihilation of Jewish children, women and men.

To murder more efficiently, the Germans created killing sites in occupied Poland: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940–1945). Most of the people deported to these sites were murdered by poison gas immediately upon arrival.

Portrait of four-year-old Malvina Babat and three-year-old Polina Babat, who were killed at the mass shootings at Babi Yar. c.1940-September 1941. Kiev, former USSR – now Ukraine. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Babi Yar Society. Copyright: Public Domain

They resisted dehumanization

Victims resisted Nazi brutality and dehumanization in many different ways – even in the face of death. These are but a few of the stories we know. Some we will never know.

A portrait of students attending a clandestine school in Mielec ghetto, Poland, 1940. Credit: Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Archival Signature 5187_3. Courtesy of Irena Eber. Copyright Yad Vashem.

Photography as resistance

During the Holocaust, despite the grave risk they faced, Jewish photographers – some professional, some amateurs – recorded what the Nazis and their collaborators perpetrated. These photographers captured on film how the victims responded. The photographs stand as invaluable historical evidence and a form of resistance against the Nazis who wished to remove any trace of Jews.

Shoes left after a deportation from the Kovno ghetto, Lithuania, circa 1943. The photograph was taken by Kovno ghetto survivor, George Kadish. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #81082. Courtesy of George Kadish/Zvi Kadushin, photographer. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Mendel Grossman (1913–1945) imprisoned in Lodz Ghetto in Poland, died on a forced death march, 30 April 1945. Saying goodbye in the Lodz ghetto, Poland, before deportation, September 1942. Photograph by Mendel Grossman. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #23698.Gift of Hana Greenbaum and Shmuel Zilbar in memory of Rozka Grosman Zilbar and Moshe Zilbar (Zilberstein), and Mendel Grossman. Source Record ID: Collections: 2005.214. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Henryk Ross (1910-1991) survived the Lodz ghetto in Poland, and the Holocaust. Deportation of Jews from the Lodz ghetto, Poland, September 1942. Photograph by Lodz ghetto survivor Henryk Ross. Credit: Copyright Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Archival Signature 2631/27.

Vladka Meed – underground resistance courier. False identification card issued in name of Stanislawa Wachalska, that Feigele Peltel (now Vladka Meed) used while serving as a courier for the Jewish underground in Warsaw. 9 October 1943, Warsaw, Poland. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Benjamin (Miedzyrzecki) Meed. Vladka Meed was born Feigele Peltel on 29 December 1921, in Warsaw, Poland. In 1940, she and her family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. Her mother, Hanna, her younger sister, Henia, and her little brother, Chaim were among the more than 265,000 Jews the Germans deported to Treblinka death camp between July and September 1942. Left in the ghetto, Feigele joined the Jewish Coordinating Committee. She was able to “pass” as a non-Jewish Pole and moved in and out of the ghetto smuggling illegal literature, correspondence, and weapons into the ghetto, and taking out news about ghetto conditions. Vladka managed to evade detection, torture and death. After the Holocaust, she immigrated to the United States. Vladka died on 22 November 2012.

Faye Schulman (1919-2021), pictured here before the war with her nephew, Schelemale. Lenin, [Belarus; Pinsk] USSR. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Faye Schulman (Faigel Lazebnik). Faye Schulman was born Faigel Lazebnik on 28 November 1919, in Lenin, Eastern Poland (now Western Belarus). When Germany invaded in 1941, Faigel and her family were forced into the Lenin ghetto. In August 1942, the Germans killed 1,850 Jews from the ghetto. The Germans spared Faigel because of her photographic skills. She managed to escape and joined a partisan group. During a subsequent partisan raid of Lenin, Faigle retrieved her photographic equipment. Through her photographs, Faigel documented the suffering and resilience of Jewish victims and partisans. After the war, she immigrated to Canada. She died at the age of 101.

They sought to help

In an increasingly hostile world, a range of individuals, and in a few instances, communities, tried to rescue victims – some through hiding those at risk or smuggling them to safety. Some forged identity documents, some engaged in acts of sabotage, some provided travel documents that could help them escape. These courageous and humane actions were rare. Many local people collaborated willingly. Most were witnesses. Those who sought to help the victims stand as examples of what can be done, even in the face of grave danger.

A few members of the diplomatic community tried to help. Some, like Chiune (Sempo) Sugihara, Japanese consul-general in Kovno, Lithuania, and Aristides De Sousa Mendes, Portuguese consul stationed in Bordeaux, France, defied their own government’s official policy in their efforts to save Jews.

Among those recognized by Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, as Righteous Among the Nations are diplomats Carl Lutz, vice-consul of Switzerland in Budapest; Selahattin Ülkümen, Turkish consul-general on the island of Rhodes under German occupation; Ho-Feng Shan, Chinese consul-general in Vienna; Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, Brazil’s Ambassador to France, and Raoul Wallenberg, legation secretary of the Swedish diplomatic mission in Budapest, Hungary.

Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe"

– Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5

Per Anger poses in front of a portrait of Raoul Wallenberg in his office in 1985. Second secretary at the Swedish legation in Budapest, Anger worked alongside Raoul Wallenberg to rescue thousands of Hungarian Jews from arrest and deportation. Raoul Wallenberg was captured by the Soviet Army after the war. His fate remains unknown. 1985, Stockholm, Sweden Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Per and Ellena Anger.

The Aftermath

Former women prisoners in bunks in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940–1945). After 27 January 1945. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #31450. Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

Here I am waiting to be liberated…and everything is gone."

– Sara Kay (1926–2019). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the National Council of Jewish Women Cleveland Section, RG-50.091.0082.

After the Holocaust, survivors confronted a ruptured world. Entire families had been murdered and communities erased. The defeat of the Nazis had not meant the defeat of antisemitism. Survivors unable or unwilling to return to their former homes made their way to displaced persons (DP) camps where they might wait for years before it was possible to immigrate to destinations around the world.

Sherit Hapleita -the Saved Remnant

Drawing upon the Biblical term referring to survivors of the Assyrian destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, Jewish Displaced Persons (DPs) called themselves Sherit Hapleita, the Saved Remnant. They began the process of re-establishing their culture: language, religious observance, Jewish customs, creative expressions. And they documented the atrocities they had survived. The projects and programmes initiated by DPs and supported by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and other organizations, were steps towards reconstituting a community, and reclaiming and constructing an identity.

Even as they moved forward establishing new homes, families, and communities, the memory of the Holocaust cast a long shadow over their lives.

Displaced persons, displaced camps

Anticipating the humanitarian crisis that would follow after the Second World War, the Allied countries established (1943) the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) - the first-ever multinational attempt to co-ordinate such support. Hundreds of displaced persons (DP) camps were set up in Germany, Austria, and Italy.

United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) official, Greta Fischer (1910-1988) with Jewish children at Kloster Indersdorf, Germany. Greta Fischer was born in Budišov (former Czechoslovakia) in 1910. She fled to London in 1939. Her parents perished in the Nazi ghetto/camp Terezin. In June 1945, she went to Germany as a member of United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's Team 182 to work at the International Displaced Person’s Children's Center established at Kloster-Indersdorf. In 1946 the DP Camp was converted to a home for Jewish refugee children from Eastern Europe. Fischer became director of the International Children’s Center Hotel Kronprinz Prien. Credit: UN Archives, S-1058-0001-01-00117

Living and grieving

Holocaust survivors living in the Displaced Persons’ (DP) camps had survived years of extreme violence. The psychological impact of this assault became evident in the DP camps. Even as DPs engaged in daily life – attending educational classes, creating art, celebrating weddings, forming relationships – they mourned all they had lost. Survivors experienced a complex set of emotions that included feelings of powerlessness, bafflement about survival, and fear that the experience of joy was a betrayal of those who did not survive. For some, mourning was perceived as an act of treason against their loved ones as it suggested an acceptance of their deaths. Survivors carried simultaneously the desire to rebuild and reconstitute, and the ache of deep grief, a grief for which some would never find solace.

Bride and groom, Hinda Chilewicz and Welek Luksenburg in the Weiden DP camp, Germany, weep during the recitation of a prayer in memory of their parents, 2 March 1947. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives #28710. Courtesy of William and Helen Lukensenberg. Copyright of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A reminder of our common humanity

To remember the victims of the Holocaust is to remember their humanity, and to defend the rights of all to live in peace and with dignity.

To remember is everyone’s responsibility.

The Holocaust, like all genocides, was not inevitable. Warning signs abounded long before the mass killing, and began with the process of “othering”. The Holocaust cautions us to heed these warning signs and to challenge hatred, bigotry, racism, and prejudice.

We can draw on our knowledge of the past to counter the fear and suspicion spread today through the manipulation of information, hate speech and the distortion of history.

With such knowledge, what will you do?

Credits

Photographs sourced from:

Anne Frank Fonds, Basel, Switzerland

Bundesarchiv

United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum

Weiner Library

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center

With thanks to:

Mr. Peter Agoos, Designer of Permanent Exhibition, United Nations

Dr. Beth B. Cohen, Historian

Professor Debórah Dwork, The Graduate Center – City University of New York (Holocaust scholar and advisor)

Professor Anne Kelly Knowles, History Department, University of Maine (Holocaust scholar and geographer)

Ms. Maja Kruse, Interdisciplinary PhD candidate, University of Maine (geographer and map designer)

This exhibit was launched in January 2025

Local category:

Human Rights

Holocaust Remembrance: A Commitment to Truth

AKAHNJOC — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 14:11:42 +0000

Teaser image:

Photography 4 Humanity

AKAHNJOC — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:41:19 +0000

Exhibit

UN & Human Rights

About the Organizers

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is the leading UN entity on human rights with a unique mandate to promote and protect all human rights for all people. Under the leadership of the High Commissioner, with a staff of 1,500 working in more than 100 countries, it aims to make human rights a reality in the lives of people everywhere.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Human Rights are Universal

The principle of universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law. This principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, has been reiterated in numerous international human rights conventions, declarations, and resolutions. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights noted that “All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.”

The United Nations and Human Rights

The promotion and protection of human rights - civil, cultural, economic, political and social - is a key purpose and guiding principle of the United Nations, which has helped develop a comprehensive body of human rights law and established mechanisms to promote and protect these rights and to assist states in carrying out their responsibilities.

"The climate crisis is the biggest threat to our survival as a species and is already threatening human rights around the world."

- António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and has been translated into over 500 languages.

About Photography 4 Humanity

Photography 4 Humanity and global collaborator UN Human Rights call on photographers around the world to bring to life the power of human rights. With compelling images that illustrate courage, despair, hope, injustice, compassion, and human rights victories and failures, large and small, this project aims to inspire people to get involved and take a stand for human rights. Based in Boulder Colorado, Photography 4 Humanity works with an Eminent Jury to help select top images from around the world to be featured in the annual Photography 4 Humanity exhibit presented by the United Nations. For more information visit: Photography4Humanity.com

About Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance

The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance and collaborator UN Human Rights address climate change as the human rights crisis that leading scientists and human rights advocates, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have declared it to be. The initiative supports effective, human rights-based implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Since 2022, the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance has worked with Photography 4 Humanity to feature images of people affected by climate change.

Winning image: Ambalakondro, Devastated by Cyclone Freddy - "In the village of Ambalakondro, Cyclone Freddy devastated 90% of the homes, leaving these residents to take refuge beneath a fragment of their roof." (Mananjary, Madagascar - March, 2023) Photo © UN OCHA/Viviane Rakotoarivony

Photography 4 Humanity calls on photographers around the world to bring to life the power of human rights through their images. Highlighting the most compelling human rights imagery - illustrating courage, despair, hope, injustice, compassion in ways small and large, the photos serve to inspire people to get involved and take a stand for human rights.

Photography 4 Humanity issues a global call to action for amateur and professional photographers alike, to submit images for an annual competition where the winner, top 10 finalists, and top 20 honorable mentions, have their photographs exhibited by the United Nations.

The global collaborator of Photography 4 Humanity is the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights). UN Human Rights is also a collaborator of the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance, which is working with Photography 4 Humanity to call upon photographers around the world to capture images of people affected by climate change.

These images depict climate change as a human rights crisis, as women, children, minorities, the poor and marginalized suffer disproportionately as the climate catastrophe escalates.

The exhibit is developed to highlight the work of top photographers through the Photography 4 Humanity Global Prize Competition, and to inspire photographers to document the power of human rights around the world.

The exhibit is created and organized by Photography 4 Humanity with the support of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

TOP 10 FINALISTS

Mother of the Mangroves

Sundarban, India

A group of women plants mangroves near the clay embankments of a village in the Sundarbans to protect it from erosion, tidal waves, saline water intrusion, and high-intensity cyclones (June, 2024). Photo/Sudip Maiti

Plastic Fishing

Mumbai, India

Fishers along the Mumbai coast are bringing their boats ashore across plastic waste that has accumulated on the seaside during high tide (June, 2024). Photo/Somenath Mukhopadhyay

The Foot Bath

Maputo, Mozambique

This picture was taken the day after heavy rains hit Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, in March 2024. More than two meters of rain fell, leaving thousands of people soaked for weeks (March, 2024). Photo/Michela Caserini

Flood in Germany

Blieskastel, Germany

Floods in Saarland, Germany: People help each other with sandbags (May, 2023). Photo/Maximilian Mann

Toxicity 2

Nigeria

Light bulbs are designed with planned obsolescence in mind. Electronics constitute a significant quantity of municipal solid wastes which are discarded after use in open dump sites (May, 2023). Photo/Emeke Obanor

Lifting Houses of Coastal Erosion Victims in Takalar

South Sulawesi, Indonesia

A group of residents worked together to lift a house in Bontokanang Village, Takalar Regency, South Sulawesi. A total of 9 houses were affected by coastal erosion in the area. The erosion of the coastline in Takalar is concrete evidence of the threat (July, 2023). Photo/Arfa Zulkarnain Ramlan

The Lives of the Rohingya are Now Affected by Climate Change

Rohingya refugee camp, Bangladesh

A massive fire broke out in the Rohingya camp, burning down thousands of shelters and killing dozens of refugees. The Rohingya frequently experience fire accidents, causing them to be displaced repeatedly (January, 2024). Photo/Khin Maung Thein

Sustainability in Action

Inle Lake, Myanmar

Plastic waste is polluting Inle Lake. Educating locals, especially the youth, on responsible disposal is crucial. This photo of children cleaning the lake symbolizes hope for a sustainable future. (June, 2024) Photo/Aung Chan Thar

Rescue

Canoas, Brazil

A man is rescued by a helicopter team after being surrounded by water on the roof of his house in Canoas, metropolitan region of Porto Alegre (April, 2024). Photo/Isaac Fontana

Source Life Seeker

Chittagong, Bangladesh

Believing that, in the absence of an afterlife or any discernible purpose to the universe, human beings can create meaning in their own lives by seeking happiness in this life and helping others do the same (February, 2024). Photo/Sumon Das

20 HONORABLE MENTIONS

Louisa Projected on Iceberg

Uummannaq, Greenland

Polar sea ice is steadily thinning and vanishing. Louisa recalls the days when she would return to her family by dogsled each Christmas. Now, the community considers itself fortunate if the ice holds for just two or three months a year, and dogsleds have become a rare sight (March, 2024). Photo/Adam Sébire

The Rohingya are Now Victims of Climate Change

Rohingya camp, Bangladesh

A young Rohingya boy was drinking water from a flooded water pump in the world’s largest refugee camp (August, 2023). Photo/Khin Maung Thein

Invitation to Invade

Lagos, Nigeria

Using metaphorical imagery and inventive lighting to depict the impact of plastic pollution, transforming collected plastic waste into art to evoke emotions, raise awareness, and inspire change (November, 2023). Photo/Adedolapo Boluwatife

Pollution of Abundance

Accra, Ghana

Old Fadama is a mountain in Ghana. Used clothes represent the new transhumance, where people draw their sustenance from the abundance of faraway societies. Changing habits are linked to climate change (September, 2023). Photo/Christian Barbe

Ganga Erosion

Samserganj, India

Residents move dangerously as a stretch of the road is affected due to Ganga erosion. Many houses along the riverbanks have eroded into the river, displacing a large number of people (May, 2023). Photo/Sumit Sanyal

Desert Games

Yeşilhisar, Turkey

A girl is running in the middle of the desert while a ghost waits for her in a play tent. Years later, our children will be exposed to desert games. We must prevent this. The Desert Games are starting (December, 2023). Photo/Yakup Sayak

NOW WE RISE!

Helsinki, Finland

Environmental protest groups, including Extinction Rebellion, demonstrated in Helsinki on June 25th. Protesters demanded increased action to address climate change (June, 2024). Photo/Ingrid van der Velde

The Burning City

Jharia, Jharkhand, India

The land of Jharia, a region in Jharkhand, India, revolves around open-cast coal mines pulsating like volcanoes. Meanwhile, the coal fires in the area emit substantial amounts of carbon (January, 2024). Photo/Vishal Kumar Singh

Cilo Buzulları

Hakkari, Turkey

Cilo Mountain, Turkey's second-highest summit at 4,135 meters, is home to the millennia-old Cilo Glaciers in Hakkari, which are now melting due to global warming (May, 2024). Photo/Betül Şimşek

Makoko Survivors

Nigeria

This image shows a portion of the Makoko community, which has garnered attention as a floating settlement. Makoko exemplifies an innovative approach to living amidst challenging environmental conditions (August, 2024). Photo/Adebote Mayowa

The Death River in the Dog Shape

Jaflong, Bangladesh

The crystal-clear water of the Piyain River, which flows from India through Bangladesh, is dying a slow death because of uncontrolled stone extracting that is harming and threatening the environment (January, 2024). Photo/M Yousuf Tushar

The Barren Beach

Aboikro beach, Assouinde, Côte d'Ivoire

A mother carries her child on her back as she collects small fish to feed her family on Aboikro Beach. Fishing communities are becoming "climate refugees" as fish become scarcer due to climate change (November, 2024). Photo/Antonio Aragon Renuncio

Walk Through The River of Plastics

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Millions of people in this area of Bangladesh pass daily through this unrecyclable ocean of plastic, which consists of bridges connecting both sides of the Buriganga River (August, 2024). Photo/Jahid Apu

Eco-Grid: A Vision of Sustainable Mobility

Guilin, China

This aerial photo displays a vast array of e-bikes in China, representing the country's ambitious push towards sustainable transportation (April, 2022). Photo/Yi Hui

Water Joy

Uganda

The Just Human International Aid Association, with the support of benefactors as part of the 'A Drop of Hope Project,' opened the 1,066th water well in Uganda. The local people were happy to have access to it (June, 2024). Photo/Cem Genco

Flood in Neyshabour 5

Neyshabour, Iran

Heavy rain and hail on May 15, 2024 caused flooding in the city, blocking roads and streets (May, 2024). Photo/Morteza Aminoroayayi

Life is Changed by Frequent Floods

Guangdong province, China

A man rides a scooter through mud and debris after heavy rainfall flooded Tangxia town in Dongguan, on September 9, 2023 (September, 2023). Photo/Aly Song Yang

Facing the Sandstorm

Samara Refugee Camp, Tindouf, Algeria

When the sandstorm hits, it hits hard. The sky looks dark. We can hear the sounds of things hitting each other or, worse, things falling close to us or on us. It can uproot and blow away our tents (December, 2023). Photo/Mohamed Sleiman Labat

Negative Effects of River Floods

Myintwin Village, Mandalay Division, Myanmar

When the rivers flood, the poor families in the village are in trouble and move toward a safe place. This photo was taken during my visit to that village to provide assistance (July, 2023). Photo/Aung Kyaw Zaw

Wall of Destiny

Odisha, India

A horrible spectacle of a seaside village in Odisha, India with all its deserted houses destroyed by repeated cyclones, looks haunted (May, 2024). Photo/Somenath Mukhopadhyay

This exhibit was launched in December 2024

Local category:
Human Rights

Photography 4 Humanity

AKAHNJOC — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:28:03 +0000

Teaser image:

A Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) Survivor’s Journey: 15 Years On

AKAHNJOC — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 20:37:18 +0000

What is conflict-related sexual violence?

The term “conflict-related sexual violence” (CRSV) refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls, or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict. Under international law, CRSV is a war crime, crime against humanity, crime of torture and can be a constitutive act of genocide.

Among its most prevalent root causes are pre-existing gender-based inequality, patriarchal social structures, poverty, and economic inequality.

Sexual violence in conflict is a despicable tactic of war and repression that destroys lives, terrorizes populations and fractures communities. We must listen to survivors, replace impunity with justice and indifference with action.”

- UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, 17 June 2022

CRSV Data, Trends and Patterns

In 2023, the UN classified 21 situations of concern - current conflict-affected areas, those that are post-conflict, and other situations of concern where CRSV trends and patterns exist.

95%

Against women and girls

32%

Against children

4%

Against men and boys

.6%

Against LGBTQI+ individuals

Unfortunately, these statistics do not reflect the full scale of this crime.

UN’s Response to CRSV

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), and its subsequent Office, was established in 2009 through Security Council resolution 1888. The Special Representative serves as the UN’s spokesperson and political advocate on CRSV. She chairs the United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict (UN Action) Network and her work is supported by the United Nations Team of Experts on the Rule of Law/Sexual Violence in Conflict (TOE) and a programmatic team.

TOE

The TOE was also created by Security Council resolution 1888 (2009) to assist national authorities in strengthening the rule of law, with the aim of ensuring criminal accountability for perpetrators of CRSV.

UN Action

UN Action was established in 2007 and is noted in various Security Council resolutions as the critical interagency coordination mechanism to address CRSV, comprised of 25 UN entities across the humanitarian, development and peacekeeping nexus.

Programme and Communications Team

The OSRSG-SVC’s Programme and Communications Team compiles the information that the UN collects and analyses data on CRSV for the purposes of improving early warning, prevention and response to CRSV, particular in tailoring response services for survivors.

The Story of CRSV

This exhibition illustrates a journey that a CRSV survivor may go through, starting from actions taken prior to the occurrence of CRSV, the incident of the crime, and the various short- and long-term pursuits to help promote a survivor’s safety, healing, and recovery.

Every survivor is unique, having been through their own experience and having different needs and ways of coping. This exhibition outlines a potential journey – one that is not linear – that survivors of CRSV could endure. It should not be forgotten that not all survivors have the opportunities, family, social or community networks, or capacity to move along the path to recovery. Survivors hold the decision to choose, or not choose, to undertake any services or activities.

Ultimately, there are as many stories as there are survivors.

Prevention of CRSV

What happened to me could have been prevented.”

- Survivor from Bosnia and Herzegovina reflecting on the CRSV incident perpetrated against her in November 1993

CRSV occurs before, during, and in the aftermath of conflict. It is driven by both armed conflict and gender inequality. As such, prevention measures and risk factors associated with CRSV draw from both conflict and gender-based violence, and include addressing root causes associated with political, economic and social inequalities, human rights violations, and drivers of insecurity and displacement such as climate change. Early signs of CRSV include threats against women human rights defenders, the outbreak of violence, and economic or political instability.

Therefore, preventing the occurrence of CRSV requires preventing the outbreak of conflict itself.

UN Action-funded trainings were conducted for more than 40 senior members of opposition forces in Diel, Central Upper Nile, in 2019 to identify concrete actions to help eliminate CRSV. UNMISS Photo

Officer beneficiaries who received trainings on the judicial handling of CRSV crimes in the DRC as part of UN Action-funded project in 2023. JHRO Photo

Multiple actors have a critical role to play in the prevention of CRSV, including governments, the UN system, non-governmental and civil society organisations, women’s groups, survivor representatives, the private sector, and individuals.

Prevention can be accomplished by:

Addressing stigma and root causes by targeting actions to advance gender equality

Regulating availability and misuse of illicit small arms

Increasing investment in human security and social support

Ensuring accountability through laws and prosecution

Securing commitments from conflict parties to prevent CRSV, and supporting sanctions against persistent perpetrators

Supporting early warning systems and capacity building

Engaging with vulnerable groups

UNODA's regional centre in Latin America and the Caribbean conducts a Firearms and Ammunition Evidence Management Course in El Salvador in December 2019. A series of technical elements were shared to incorporate a gender perspective in investigation processes of crimes committed with firearms with special attention to cases of violence against women. UNODA Photo

The Occurrence of CRSV

This video produced by the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) relays testimonies from conflict-related sexual violence survivors about the crimes committed against them and their effects. Anyone can be a CRSV survivor: women, girls, men, boys of all ages, those from the LGBTQI+ community, and persons with disabilities. Due to high rates of underreporting, CRSV is often a silent crime that results in low visibility among all actors that are positioned to help.

Video by Sonam Tharchen | Photo by Nektarios Markogiannis

After CRSV: The Survivor’s Journey Begins

All forms of assistance must be conducted in a survivor-centred approach. This means that the survivors’ rights, needs, and wishes are prioritised across any action with the objective to support them. The most recent resolution on CRSV, Security Council resolution 2467 (2019), articulates a survivor-centred approach for the first time in the UN’s framework of responding to CRSV, recognising the importance of viewing survivors as leaders and agents of change, rather than just victims. Adopting a survivor-centred approach means creating a supportive environment for survivors, where they are the primary decision makers and can safely identify and express their needs and wishes.

Survivors know best what they need to heal and recover.”

– Nadia Murad, Yazidi survivor, activist and Nobel Prize laureate

Stage 1 - Immediate Assistance for Survivors

After the occurrence of a CRSV crime, survivors may be assisted by a range of actors. These include local non-governmental and civil society organisations, social workers, humanitarian workers, government agencies, police, and the military. In situations where the UN has a field presence, such as a peacekeeping operation or special political mission, the UN can provide assistance, including through its agencies and partners through Women’s Protection Advisers or CRSV focal points.

To emphasise the collective effort to provide assistance and address the immediate needs of CRSV survivors, the OSRSG-SVC Conflict's Programme and Communications Team will work with the national authorities or non-state actors who signed communiqués to develop implementation plans, in collaboration with civil society organisations. These plans further articulate concrete actions to ensure that there is a cohesive approach to preventing and responding to CRSV.

Immediate and Short-Term Assistance

In many instances, the aforementioned actors may assist survivors to access more specialised services, such as sexual and reproductive health care, medical and psychosocial services, and referrals to legal assistance. It is important that survivors are provided with comprehensive information so they can make informed choices, including choices about using multisectoral response services and the possible consequences of accessing those services.

One-Stop Centre Model

One-Stop Centres or mobile health clinics are types of service centres that may be available to survivors. They can cover a spectrum of multisectoral care and support for survivors of CRSV. The centres or mobile clinics can provide urgent, integrated and ethical services and facilitate timely response services under one roof.

Dignity Kit

Humanitarian actors often distribute Dignity Kits that typically contain menstrual hygiene materials, soap, underwear, and information on available gender-based violence services, including where and how to access those services. These kits can be tailored to each context, taking into consideration local languages, cultural, and religious garments.

Stage 2 - Medium- and Long-Term Assistance

Pursuing Justice & Accountability

As part of their journey, CRSV survivors may also wish to pursue legal action against their perpetrators. It is critical that legal services are available should they wish to utilise them. This includes access to legal aid centres and hotlines in local languages, the provision of materials and individual reparations, and participation in transitional justice processes in the long term. It is also critical that CRSV survivors are made aware of their rights to legal aid and assistance. Trials to prosecute CRSV crimes should be held in strict compliance with international standards, including in relation to procedural fairness, the full participation of victims, and the security and protection of all parties.

These are the veils and disguises that were worn during the Minova Rape Trials in the DRC. CRSV survivors wore them to protect their identities from the public due to stigma associated with sexual violence and risks of retaliation.

The Guinea Trial

In September 2023, current Special Representative Patten travelled to Guinea for the opening of the trial on the 13th anniversary of the massacre at the Conakry stadium (28 September 2009) that saw 150 deaths and countless rapes of women and girls. Through the Team of Experts on the Rule of Law and Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Office of Special Representative Patten supported the investigating judges until the closing of the investigation and the establishment of a Steering Committee for the organisation of the hearings.

Video produced by ONU Guinée (Video in French with English subtitles)

Undertaking Livelihood Activities, Skills Training, and Education

The majority of survivors come from socioeconomically marginalised communities, whereby stigma and discrimination surrounding survivors of sexual violence may restrict their access to education and economic life. It is therefore vital that efforts to assist CRSV survivors on their road to recovery include the provision of education, livelihood activities, and skills training, such as economic empowerment initiatives.

The impact of survivor empowerment and reintegration:

Participate in existing markets and education systems

Access educational and work opportunities

Voice agency in economic decision-making

Exercise control over their resources and political future

Bolster individuals’ agency and independence

Help survivors reintegrate within groups or communities

Empower survivors to become active contributors and agents of change

Through the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, there are numerous multi-stakeholder initiatives undertaken to support CRSV survivors to become employed, self-sufficient, and educated. The following information showcases an example of how CRSV survivors participate in livelihood activities, skills training, and education through engagement with the UN Action Network.

Somalia

In a gathering space, discussions included early marriage, the roles of women in the security sector, and the roles of mothers in protecting their children from violence.

A cultural heritage event allowed participants to present their unique traditions, foods, arts, and dances to strengthen relationships among communities.

A pot-breaking exercise stimulated discussions about trust and responsibility.

Running between 2020 and 2021, UN Action funded a project that leveraged the strength of women in Somalia to mitigate CRSV and prevent violent extremism implemented by the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) and IOM. The project used culturally grounded approaches to assist women, who were formerly associated with violent extremist groups, recovering from trauma and provided economic empowerment support to ultimately ensure that the women became active contributors to sustainable peacebuilding in their societies. Survivors received individualised services, such as medical support, referrals, and specialised mental health counselling, and also participated in education, business development, and livelihood skills training to enable them to rebuild their lives, tailored to adapt to each woman’s unique interests, needs, and goals.

Photography by IOM Somalia

Stage 3 - Survivors’ Political Participation in ɫ��TVbuilding and Development Efforts

The Special Representative supports survivors to become agents of change and travels extensively to meet with CRSV survivors in various situations of concern, including in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. These conversations with survivors help inform the Special Representative's advocacy efforts with UN Member States, including at the UN Security Council, as well as the strategic priorities and initiatives of their Office.

The UN has also worked to ensure that survivors and service providers are heard and present at the decision-making tables, including at Security Council briefings, political gatherings, and advocacy events.

At the 10th anniversary of the CRSV mandate in 2019, survivors were invited to speak at the UN Headquarters in New York to showcase how they were able to overcome their trauma, become agents of their own change, and participate in wider peacebuilding activities to advance the mandate. Many of these survivors have used their stories to help other survivors, including by founding non-governmental organisations, men’s groups, and associations.

Badryia, a survivor from Iraq: “Nobody can stop me. Not even ISIS.” UN Photo

A women’s shelter in Iraq being opened with advocacy support from Special Representative Patten in 2018. Photo/UNFPA Iraq

Aimé, a survivor from the DRC, has used his experience to form a male survivor-led support group that brings together male survivors of CRSV. UN Photo

Ángela, a survivor from Colombia: “With our empowerment and leadership, we have not only managed to confront stigmatisation and support other victims who see us as an example, we have also become advocates for the rights of girls and women.” UN Photo

15-Year Anniversary

UN Photo

2024 marks the 15-year anniversary of the creation of the UN’s agenda to prevent and respond to CRSV, and specifically the creation of the role of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Attention is needed to bolster and reinforce the UN's work on CRSV, specifically in supporting survivors in their journey to recovery and healing. Although this exhibition detailed a potential journey of a survivor, the majority of survivors do not receive any treatment or services in the immediate, short, medium or long term. Many of the survivors who are able to physically recover are still waiting for justice and accountability. It is critical that their stories are heard and their needs are met.

Sponsors and Collaborators

This exhibition, A Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) Survivor’s Journey, is presented by the United Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict (UN Action) Network, a coordinated body of 25 UN entities, hosted under the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. The exhibition was organised in collaboration with frontline service providers, Women’s Protection Advisers, SEMA (the Global Network of Victims and Survivors to End Wartime Sexual Violence), the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation, the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, the Government of Japan, the Government of Norway, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, and VMLY&R.

This exhibit was launched in June 2024

Local category:
Human Rights

A Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) Survivor's Journey to Healing

AKAHNJOC — Tue, 21 May 2024 14:40:39 +0000

Teaser image:

Remember.Unite.Renew.

AKAHNJOC — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 19:08:54 +0000

Laurence Niyonangira, Genocide survivor. UN Photo/Manuel Elías

Remember.Unite.Renew.

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda left unanswered questions across an entire society. How do I live with what I have seen? How do I live with what I have done? Who am I without my community?

Only one option remained – to move forward.

Today, Rwanda is a testament to the power of post-genocide reconciliation. Among the stories of hope is that of Laurence, a survivor, and Xavier, her family’s killer, who now live as friends. Explore their journey, the impact of hate speech and how your actions can make a difference.

Xavier Nemeye, Reformed genocide perpetrator. UN Photo/Manuel Elías

100 Days of Terror

100 days How long the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda lasted in 1994

Around 1 million People killed, mainly Tutsi but also moderate Hutu and Twa

A quarter million People raped and sexually abused

Over 120,000 Perpetrators convicted in the killings

Did you know?

The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Rafał (Raphael) Lemkin, following the Holocaust. He led the campaign to have genocide recognised and codified as an international crime.

Determining if genocide occurred is a legal matter. Only a competent court with jurisdiction to try such cases can make the decision, after all the facts are examined.

Laurence Niyonangira survived the genocide.

But 37 of her relatives were killed. She was 20 years old.

Those who killed innocent people got nothing from their crimes. No one can think about doing it again,” says Laurence today.

Propaganda fuels hatred

Tall and thin, Laurence remembers Hutu students at school taunting her that they would “resize” her, echoing a vicious stereotype that Tutsis were “too tall”.

Perished lives

Her father once gave cows to Hutu neighbours, hoping to plant seeds of friendship. But when the genocide began in April 1994, they killed him.

Fleeing for safety

Laurence fled her village carrying one child on her back and heavily pregnant with another. At a checkpoint, overcome by horror, she begged soldiers to kill her, but they refused to “waste” a bullet on a pregnant woman.

Shelter

A young Hutu man and family friend took her in, giving her food and shelter until she could walk south to a refugee camp across the border with Burundi.

As Laurence fled with her children, she promised God that if they survived, she would someday, somehow forgive the killers.

Years later, still imprisoned, Xavier wrote to Laurence confessing to killing her mother and sisters, and asking her forgiveness.

It was the first news Laurence had of their fate, and the shock and grief sent her into a long depression. “It took away my hope that somehow they had survived. But I remembered my promise to forgive.”

Xavier Nemeye was 30 years old when he took part in the genocide.

I have never seen anything so tragic and terrible. Everyone loses,” he reflects. “I share my stories with young people so they can create a different future.” – Xavier Nemeye

Years of propaganda

By spring 1994, Xavier had been influenced by years of propaganda against the Tutsi, sanctioned by the then-government. Xavier believed the lies despite his mother being Tutsi – a secret she hid by marrying a Hutu man – and despite being friends with Tutsi families.

Violence

In April 1994, Xavier joined 15 young men who collected farming tools as weapons. They found a Tutsi woman and two of her daughters – Laurence’s mother and sisters – and beat them to death in a small trench used for ripening bananas.

Shame

Overcome by shame at what he had done, Xavier went home to protect his mother from potential attackers. He never told her the details of his crimes.

Imprisonment and enduring guilt

Imprisoned for years after the genocide, Xavier confessed his guilt and was released. But he thinks constantly about what he did.

We were trained to think of each other as enemies, not to build a relationship. It was dehumanizing. Reconciliation and forgiveness remind you that each life has value.” – Xavier Nemeye

As survivors, we can only heal our wounds with the people who created them.” – Laurence Niyonangira

Uniting through forgiveness

When Laurence first met Xavier after the genocide, the fear was paralysing: “I was so afraid that even if I forgave him, he would come back and kill me,” she remembers. Community meetings and sessions with religious leaders eased tensions.

Xavier began to help her with tasks around her home, which she saw as proof of his genuine repentance. Both she and Xavier describe each other today as friends who meet at family celebrations and lend each other small sums when needed.

The villages are a partnership between Prison Fellowship Rwanda and the Government of Rwanda, with support from the international community.

Unique to Rwanda, the villages are part of the country’s collective efforts to heal wounds and bridge divisions.

Thousands of genocide survivors live next door to reformed perpetrators in eight unity and resilience villages throughout Rwanda.

Their children and grandchildren attend school and play together, living as “Rwandans”.

Laurence and Xavier lived side by side in the Mbyo Unity and Resilience Village.

Justice after the genocide

Xavier is one of more than 120,000 people accused and tried for participating in the genocidal killings. Some perpetrators are still on the run. New mass burial sites continue to be found. People are still missing.

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

In the aftermath of the genocide, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). It indicted nearly 100 high-ranking officials and other individuals responsible for the gravest crimes committed in 1994.

In its landmark “media case”, the ICTR became the first international tribunal to hold members of the media responsible for broadcasts intended to inflame the public to commit genocide.

The National Court System

Rwanda’s national courts prosecuted those accused of planning the genocide or committing the most severe atrocities, including rape. The task was difficult because many judges, lawyers, and other judicial staff were killed during the genocide, and much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed.

The Gacaca Court System

The sheer number of perpetrators meant that most were sent to traditional community courts called gacaca (pronounced GA-CHA-CHA). In the gacaca system, community-elected judges heard cases on all crimes except planning of genocide. The gacaca courts gave reduced sentences to perpetrators who repented and sought reconciliation with their community by telling the truth about what happened to missing people.

I lost 45 family members in the genocide. At first, there was so much trauma in my heart. I began working on restorative justice in prisons and realized that when offenders were willing to ask forgiveness for what they did, we could bring them together with their victims to seek reconciliation. I never met those who killed my own relatives, but I found hope in this journey.

When I saw people helping each other and crying because they could finally imagine a different life, I knew that peace could contribute to healing.” — Bishop Deo Gashagaza, head of Prison Fellowship Rwanda

We created community spaces for healing, where people can gain a sense of security, social cohesion and trust.

It is not easy – but it is possible. Increasingly, we focus on youth because the trauma has been passed to the younger generation, the children of survivors and perpetrators. They have feelings of shame as well as anger and fear that it could happen again.” — Chantal Ingabire, service provider at Community-Based Sociotherapy

The genocide happened when I was 3 years old…Much of what I learned came from my Mom because my Dad was unable to speak about it until 2017. I see other young people asking lots of questions. Some wonder why they have no relatives. Others have parents in jail. Young people want to know the truth about their past, both the genocide and the values and dignity of our heritage. We are educating [youth] because when you know where you come from, it becomes easier to navigate the future.” — Christian Intwari, founder of Our Past Initiative

The need for reconciliation existed before the genocide, when the social fabric was torn apart under colonialism. Tremendous work since 1994 has helped to overcome the hatred and fear, such as by removing ethnicity from identification cards and enacting pro-poor policies. But challenges remain. We must build resilience to cement the gains made and ensure history does not repeat itself.

There is genocide denial on social media. Many people live with unhealed wounds and unanswered questions, and reconciliation – while advancing – remains a journey." —Révérien Interayamahanga, researcher on reconciliation and resilience with Interpeace

The zigzag symbol on Rwanda’s famous Agaseke, or peace basket, represents women holding hands.

As in many countries and cultures, it’s the women who mend a society after conflict. In Rwanda, in a remarkable display of resilience and solidarity, women overcame traumas to weave together and create thriving artisan cooperatives.

What is genocide?

Greek prefix genos (people, race or tribe), and the Latin suffix cide (killing)

According to international law, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such^*:

(a) killing members of the group;

(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

^*Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948

Intent to destroy

The legal definition of genocide includes intent to destroy in whole or in part, which is the most difficult element to determine.

To commit genocide, a perpetrator must have a proven intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.

It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique.

Did you know?

Events that do not meet the definition of genocide may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, which are separate crimes under international law.

War crimes

are serious violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts

Crimes against humanity

are committed as a part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population

Dark side of humanity

The 1948 Genocide Convention legally defined the term “genocide” adding to the body of international law on grave abuses of human rights.

Tragically, the world witnessed genocides before 1948, including the Holocaust, which is the state-sponsored, ideologically-driven persecution and murder of six million Jews across Europe and from North Africa, and half a million Roma and Sinti by Nazi Germany (1933–1945) and collaborators. The Nazis also targeted people with disabilities; Slavic peoples (especially Poles and Russians);Black people on racist grounds; and Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Learn more from the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

Since 1948, competent international judicial bodies have determined three instances to have constituted genocide, as legally defined.

Cambodia (1975-1979)

Crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva conventions for the large-scale violations that occurred during the 1975-79 period in Cambodia.

Under the Khmer Rouge regime, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people died from starvation, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Among those targeted were an estimated 20,000 ethnic Vietnamese and 100-500,000 Cham Muslims, who were deemed victims of genocide by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda: 7 April-7 July 1994

Around 1 million people were killed during 100 days in 1994, in addition to hundreds of thousands raped and injured. For the first time in history, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) delivered verdicts against persons responsible for committing genocide. The ICTR was also the first institution to recognize rape as a means of committing genocide.

Srebrenica: July 1995

About 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were killed by Bosnian Serb forces when they overran the town of Srebrenica during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that the execution was a genocide.

Genocides do not start with bullets or concentration camps. They begin with hate speech.

Hate speech is an alarm bell - the louder it rings, the greater the threat of genocide. It precedes and promotes violence.” — Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General

Hate speech can be a precursor to genocide and related crimes. There are many ways you can take a stand, even if you are not personally the victim of hate speech. You can make a difference.

Change begins with all of us: say #NoToHate

WAYS TO DEAL WITH HATE SPEECH

1. Educate

Engage with your family and friends in conversations about how hate speech can harm societies. Think before you share on social media.

2. Get involved

Become familiar with organizations and the work being done to protect human rights and prevent genocide.

3. Foster a culture of mutual respect

Promote a culture of peace and non-violence in your daily life that includes respect for diversity and non-discrimination. This way we can build societies that are resilient to the risk of genocide.

The Department of Global Communications

wishes to thank the Government of Rwanda, Prison Fellowship Rwanda, the United Nations System in Rwanda, and the Office of the Special Adviser on Genocide Prevention.

Our special thanks to Laurence and Xavier, who have allowed us to tell their story to educate people about the horrors and futility of genocide.

Photo credits: UN Photo/Manuel Elías; Getty Images

7 April marked the start of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Every year on or around that date, the United Nations organizes commemorative events at UN Headquarters- and around the world.

This exhibit was launched in March 2024

Local category:
Human Rights

Remember. Unite. Renew.

AKAHNJOC — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 18:47:52 +0000

familytree.pdf

familytree.pdf

Teaser image:

Photography 4 Humanity 2023

AKAHNJOC — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 23:10:21 +0000

Exhibit

UN & Human Rights

About the Organizers

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is the leading UN entity on human rights with a unique mandate to promote and protect all human rights for all people. Under the leadership of the High Commissioner, with a staff of 1,300 working in more than 100 countries, it aims to make human rights a reality in the lives of people everywhere.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Human Rights are Universal

The principle of universality of human rights is the cornerstone of international human rights law. This principle, as first emphasized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, has been reiterated in numerous international human rights conventions, declarations, and resolutions. The 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights noted that "All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated."

75^thAnniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In 2023, the 75^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being celebrated as a milestone in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and has been translated into over 500 languages.

The United Nations and Human Rights

The advancement of all human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, is a key purpose of the United Nations, which supports mechanisms established to promote and protect these rights and directly assists states in carrying out their human rights obligations.

"The climate crisis is the biggest threat to our survival as a species and is already threatening human rights around the world."

- António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations

About Photography 4 Humanity

Photography 4 Humanity calls upon photographers around the world to bring to life the power of human rights. With compelling images that illustrate courage, despair, hope, injustice, compassion, and human rights victories and failures, large and small, this project aims to inspire people to get involved and take a stand for human rights. Based in Boulder Colorado, Photography 4 Humanity is an initiative led by world-renowned photographers that works with Eminent Jurors to help select top images from around the world to be featured in the annual Photography 4 Humanity exhibit by the United Nations. For more information and a list of Eminent Jurists, visit: Photography4Humanity.com

About Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance

The Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance addresses climate change as the human rights crisis that leading scientists and human rights advocates, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have declared it to be. The initiative supports effective, human rights-based implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change. For more information visit: righthererightnow.global

The Collaboration

In 2022 the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Alliance started to collaborate with Photography 4 Humanity to feature images of people affected by climate change.

Winning photo: The seashore is no longer here. School girls stand in an abandoned seaport town next to an installation showing where the Aral Sea used to come. Photo/Kristina Varaksina. Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan (May, 2022)

Photography 4 Humanity calls on photographers around the world to bring to life the power of human rights through their images. Highlighting the most compelling human rights imagery - illustrating courage, despair, hope, injustice, compassion in ways small and large, the photos serve to inspire people to get involved and take a stand for human rights.

Photography 4 Humanity encourages amateur and professional photographers alike, to submit images for an annual competition where the winner and top 10 finalists have their photographs exhibited by the United Nations globally via un.org.

Photography 4 Humanity, with the support of the UN Human Rights Office, call upon photographers around the world to capture images of people affected by climate change.

These images depict climate change as a human rights crisis, as women, children, minorities, the poor and marginalized suffer disproportionately as the climate catastrophe escalates.

The exhibit is developed to highlight the work of top photographers through the Photography 4 Humanity Global Prize Competition, and to inspire photographers to document the power of human rights around the world.

The exhibit is created and organized by Photography 4 Humanity with the support of UN Human Rights Office.

FINALISTS

The last hope

Photo/Sourav Das. West Bengal, India (June, 2022)

A source of drinking water is being taken by the sea.

Mother and daughter hoping for rain

Photo/Joydeep Mukherjee. Bali Island, Sandarbans, India (September, 2022)

Climate change is a pressing issue causing concern for those who rely on agriculture to feed their families.

Running through the storm for water

Photo/Peter Ndung'u. Amboseli, Kenya (July, 2022)

A girl runs to collect water through a climate induced dust storm sweeping through Kenya's Amboseli National Park.

After the storm

Photo/Nguyen Ngoc Hai. Phu Quoc Island, Viet Nam (September, 2022)

Funeral procession

Stand off

Photo/Ingmar Björn Nolting. Lützerath, Germany (January, 2023)

Climate activists blocking an excavator on the edge of the Garzweiler II open-pit coal mine.

Bush fire

Photo/Lalliot Théo. Livingstone, Zambia (July, 2022)

A bush fire erupts in Makalu N'guzu.

Displaced by drought then flood

Photo/Esmatullah Habibian. Herat, Afghanistan (June, 2022)

A family who migrated to Herat due to extreme drought, have their tents flooded.

Following the earthquake

Photo/Sayed Habib Bidell. Paktika Province, Afghanistan (June, 2022)

A violent dust storm follows a devastating earthquake.

The sinking Sundarbans mangrove forest

Photo/Supratim Bhattacharjee. Mousuni Island, Sundarbans, India (September, 2022)

Seawater breaches the embankment in Mousuni Island and enters the cultivated land on September 9, 2022.

Fragments of faith still remain

Photo/Pubarun Basu. Malda, West Bengal, India (February, 2022)

Amidst the rubble of his broken mosque caused by flooding, Ajahar still prays.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Typhoon Hinnamnor

Photo/Kim hee-chul. Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Republic of Korea (September, 2022)

Firefighters rescue a woman from a flooded underground parking lot.

The future is here

Photo/Supratim Bhattacharjee. Satjelia Island, Sundarbans, India (September, 2023)

Solar panels reach the Sundarbans mangrove forests by boat.

Water guardians

Photo/Esteban Biba. San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala (April, 2023)

Indigenous women collect plastic polluting their lake and land.

Drought

Photo/Wadaa Abdul Kareem Faleh. Nasiriya, Iraq (July, 2022)

A man walks through the middle of the drought stricken Chabayish marshes.

Inventory of the sea

Photo/Camila Hermes. Capão da Canoa, Brazil (October, 2022)

A range of trash that washes up on a beach in southern Brazil every day.

The Conselice flood

Photo/Cesare Barillà. Conselice, Italy (May, 2023)

Unprecedented flooding in the town of Conselice.

Sustainable impact

Photo/Mouneb Taim. Amsterdam, Kingdom of the Netherlands (February, 2022)

To reduce carbon emissions, Dutch climate policy encourages cycling.

Vegetable garden

Photo/Domenico Fasano. Ziguinchor, Senegal (May, 2022)

Women raise food and funding for their families through collective gardens.

Drying planet

Photo/Sandipani Chattopadhyay. West Bengal, India (June, 2022)

Local people in Purulia bathe and drink from a drying riverbed.

Rising sea

Photo/Eddie Jim. Kioa Island, Fiji (May, 2023)

A woman abandons her family home fearing the sea will continually rise.

Demolition

Photo/Ribhu Chatterjee. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India (August, 2022)

The aftermath of the Supertech twin tower demolition produced toxic smog.

Cooking through the flood

Photo/Mohammad Omar Faruk. Chittagong, Bangladesh (August, 2022)

Annual monsoon flooding plagues a hotel which must continue to provide meals to its residents.

Artificial coral reefs are created

Photo/Christian Barbe. Mananjary, Madagascar (July, 2022)

A coral reef that used to be a habitat for octopus is being rebuilt by a local fisherman.

Africa blues

Photo/Giulia Piermartiri. Mozambique (June, 2022)

Since Mozambique is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in Africa, the photo projection on this home is a sign of what’s to come.

A handful of water

Photo/Ekrem Sahin. Burdur, Türkiye (August, 2022)

Migratory birds try to survive by drinking polluted water that stains the land as the drought gets worse.

Watching the world burn

Photo/Bernard Kalu. Lagos, Nigeria (February, 2022)

People silently watching a landfill fire are a metaphor for those who stand by and watch climate change unfold.

Australian bush fires

Photo/Thomas Beach. Melbourne, Australia (April, 2022)

Flying through smoke, the bush fires suddenly come into view.

Solidarity

Photo/Michele Lapini. Forlì, Italy (May, 2023)

Volunteers from Bologna cleaning a chandelier shop following deadly flooding in Forlì.

Landscape revealed

Photo/Anna Korbut. Switzerland (July, 2023)

People walk on the Morena landscape that was revealed when the glacier melted.

From death springs life

Photo/Enoch Anyane. Ashanti Region, Ghana (January, 2023)

A tree planted to replace another.

This exhibit was launched in December 2023

Local category:
Human Rights

Responsibility for Memory: The Role of Art in Holocaust Remembrance

AKAHNJOC — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 16:22:21 +0000

Exhibit

Credits

This exhibit is organized by the Museum Center for Persecuted Arts, and is part of The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme‘s commemoration of the November Pogrom (9-10 November 1938).

Exhibition by

Museum Center for Persecuted Arts, Solingen

Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

In cooperation with

MOCAK Museum for Contemporary Arts Krakow

Boris Lurie Art Foundation

Curators

Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg

Jürgen Joseph Kaumkötter

Design

Timon Wißfeld – Gutes im Falschen

Photographs by

Jörg von Bruchhausen

CICS – Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences

Museum am Dom, Dioceses of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation

Interview with Yehuda Bacon by

Julia Riedhammer

Christine Thalmann (rbb. Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg)

Supported by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations. Museum Center for Persecuted Arts is part of the Cultural Heritage Network of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland

Yad Vashem

Spanning some 45 acres across Jerusalem’s Mount of Remembrance, Yad Vashem is the world center for Holocaust education, remembrance, research and documentation. For seven decades, Yad Vashem has dedicated itself to perpetuating the memory of the Jewish men, women and children who were murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and to passing on the legacy of the survivors. Its state-of-the-art museums, world-class research and education centers, and expansive archives and libraries provide an unparalleled venue for inter-generational learning and contemplation, reflected also in its comprehensive online resources utilized by millions of people around the globe.

Drawing on the memories of the past, Yad Vashem seeks to meaningfully impart the legacy of the Shoah for generations to come. Yad Vashem’s Art Collection comprises close to 14,000 works of art, half of which were created during the Holocaust. These provide a unique perspective based on the individual’s experience. Each of these works is, in essence, an irreplaceable personal testimony of human existence during the Holocaust.

Museum Center for Persecuted Arts

The Museum Center for Persecuted Arts is devoted exclusively to the persecuted arts of the twentieth century up to the present day. Its collection and exhibitions focus on works from the fields of the visual arts, literature, music and theater, particularly those created by individuals persecuted by the Nazi regime. Through its multidisciplinary exhibitions, the Center for Persecuted Arts fills a gap in the museum landscape by drawing attention to the diverse expressions of overt resistance or defiance by artists and writers in authoritarian regimes, thus addressing an important self-empowerment independent of the art canon and the art market. Through artistic articulations, the museum demonstrates how the existential and life-threatening experiences of flight, expulsion, persecution and exile can be described and overcome, then and now. The museum’s inaugural exhibition, Der Tod hat nicht das letzte Wort (Death Does Not Have the Last Word) in the Bundestag in Berlin in 2015 programmatically demonstrated the museum’s orientation: emphasis on the continued importance of remembrance and survivors’ commitment to the representation and analysis of the Holocaust.

Yehuda Bacon, Woman with child at the barbed wire fence of a concentration camp

Yehuda Bacon, Before the Transport to Terezín, 1945

Yehuda Bacon

This exhibition highlights the importance of art for Holocaust remembrance today. It presents three generations of artists whose lives were impacted by the Holocaust, and whose art was shaped by this experience.

Organized chronologically in seven sections, the exhibition revolves around artist and witness Yehuda Bacon (b. 1929). The display begins with German Jewish artists such as Ludwig Meidner and Felix Nussbaum, who responded to the November Pogrom of 1938 in their painting, foreseeing the destruction of European Jewry, and continues with artworks from the Terezín ghetto. Included are Karel Fleischmann (1897–1944), who gave Yehuda Bacon his first drawing lessons in the ghetto, and painter, poet and art teacher Peter Kien (1919–1944). Other prisoners such as Friedl Dicker-Brandeis also taught the boys and girls in Terezín. The work of Boris Lurie (1924-2008) is displayed as are works created after 1945 by other artists, who like Bacon, were the only survivors of their families.

The main section focuses on Yehuda Bacon, from the drawings created immediately after his liberation recording his experiences in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945), to the paintings reflecting his own mature style. In addition to his artistic career, Bacon kept his oath to testify to the world about the crimes of the Holocaust and served as a witness at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961 and at the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt am Main in 1964.

In parallel, Bacon taught art for 35 years at the Bezalel art academy, initiating a generation of young artists into the secrets of draftsmanship and printing techniques. Sigalit Landau was one of these young artists. The exhibition thus ends with this internationally-acclaimed Israeli artist, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, who refers to the Holocaust with a personal, yet universal approach. Ultimately, the artistic thread connecting teachers to their students echoes the transmission of memory from the Holocaust victims and survivors to the following generations, emphasizing the power of visual testimony in the commitment to Holocaust remembrance and our responsibility to educate about its relevance.

This exhibition forms part of the 2023 programme of Holocaust remembrance and education organized by The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme. Member States of the United Nations established The Holocaust and the UN Outreach Programme (General Assembly resolution 60/7). The Outreach Programme is an expression of the commitment of the UN to fighting hatred, and to contribute to building a world in which all can live in peace and with dignity.

The Holocaust (Shoah)

The Holocaust (Shoah) was the anti-Jewish campaign initiated and implemented by Nazi Germany during the years 1933-1945. Its culmination was an unprecedented and systematic genocide that aimed to totally eradicate Judaism and annihilate the Jewish people.

The campaign’s primary motivation was an antisemitic, racist ideology, which asserted that the Jews were a danger to Germany and to humankind as a whole. According to this ideology, the Jews were parasites who exploited non-Jewish peoples and disseminated ideas about human equality perceived as undermining the natural and ostensibly appropriate hierarchy between the so-called “races”.

From 1933 onwards, Nazi Germany implemented anti-Jewish policies: initially, they defined who were Jews, stripped them of most of their rights, their professional status and their property, and acted to isolate them socially. During the Second World War, anti-Jewish measures escalated, both in Germany and in occupied and Germany-allied Europe, and included banishment from the general population by marking, segregating or concentrating Jewish people in ghettos, forced labour, starvation and more. These actions gained support in Germany and other countries, and led to the Jews’ removal from civil, social and economic life in their countries of residence.

The systematic murder of Jews began in the summer of 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union, and Nazi policy gradually developed into a comprehensive genocide termed “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. By the end of the war, nearly six million Jews had been murdered.

In addition to the policy to annihilate all Jews, the Nazis targeted others. Germans with disabilities were the first victims of organized murder; several million Soviet POWs (Prisoners of War) died through brutal treatment or were murdered; homosexual men and political dissenters were frequently interned in camps, where many died; the Poles were oppressed by their German occupiers and in particular Polish elites were imprisoned in camps or murdered outright; many Germans of African descent were subjected to sterilization; and the Sinti and Roma were subjected to genocide.

Felix Nussbaum

The November Pogrom 1938

Born in Osnabrück in 1904, Felix Nussbaum studied art in Hamburg in 1922 and a year later continued his studies at the Lewin-Funcke School in Berlin, where he enrolled in the class of Ludwig Meidner. Following the Nazis‘ rise to power, he wandered through Europe and in 1935 sought refuge in Belgium for himself and his partner, the artist Felka Platek. Initially, the couple lived in Ostend; two years later, they moved to Brussels. Following the German occupation of Belgium in May 1940, Nussbaum was arrested and interned in the Saint-Cyprien camp in southern France. Several months later, he escaped and returned to Brussels, where he went into hiding with his wife. He created dozens of artworks reflecting the anguish of the persecuted Jews. Only with the help of friends, who secretly safeguarded the works, did these survive the war. In June 1944 the couple was denounced, arrested and transferred to the Mechelen camp. In July they were deported on the last transport from Belgium to Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945), where they were murdered.

Photo of Felix Nussbaum at 26 June 1942. Property of the Nussbaum Family

The face of the 38-year-old artist on this passport photo reveals how much the artist aged in the years of occupation in Brussels: his cheeks are emaciated, he has lost his hair and his anxious gaze reflects the hopelessness of his situation.

Rue Triste, 1938, signed and inscribed on the reverse: “TROSTLOSE STRASSE Felix Nussbaum”. Felix Nussbaum created Rue Triste and The Great Destruction around the turn of 1938/39 while in exile in Brussels. These two works by Felix Nussbaum are the only pieces in his artwork that refer directly to the pogroms of 9 and 10 November in Germany in 1938. Private Collection, on permanent loan to the Center for Persecuted Arts (Facsimile)

Ludwig Meidner (1884-1966), In Memory of our Destroyed Synagogues in Germany 10/11/1938, 1939. Ludwig Meidner (1884–1966) was a teacher and friend of Felix Nussbaum. In 1939, Meidner and his wife Else managed to flee to England and thus survived. In this work, Meidner reacts to the riots and violence against the Jewish community. In an inscription on the back of the work, he unequivocally dedicates it to “the memory of our destroyed synagogues in Germany” (Chalk and charcoal on paper 70.7 × 55 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Infrared and X-ray reflectogram of Rue Triste
CICS – Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences

The technological examination and research conducted by the Center for Persecuted Arts enabled it to date Rue Triste to 1939. It disclosed that the painting behind it shares the same composition as The Great Destruction (version II) and depicts a similar apocalyptic scene. Felix Nussbaum thus painted over the field of ruins and expressed his feelings toward Germany by representing the city of his birth as a deserted, threatening place.

The X-ray image made at CICS – Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences reveals a fully elaborated painting very similar to The Great Destruction (version II).

Through an infrared image made at CICS, we can look under the uppermost, impasto layer of paint and see the cat taking up an attack position in front of a pile of rubble. In the infrared image, we can surmise that the “pile of rubble” consists of window frames and broken glass. It blocks the cat’s path. The National Socialist press trivialized the pogrom night of 1938 as a “Kristallnacht” (Night of Broken Glass), for which the pile of destroyed windows can serve as a symbol.

Felix Nussbaum, The Great Destruction, Brussels, c. 1939 (India ink and wash on paper 54.5 x 67.5 cm).

Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem, Gift of Roger-David Katz and his wife Louba Moscicka, Brussels. In memory of their family members who perished in the Holocaust. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Peter Kien

Holocaust Art

Peter Kien, born in Varnsdorf in 1919, was a German-speaking Czech Jew. In 1936, Kien began to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and at a graphics workshop under Prof. Hugo Steiner-Prag. In 1939, as a result of the Nuremberg Laws, Kien was expelled from the academy, but taught art within the Jewish community. The Nuremberg Laws were a set of discriminatory laws enacted by Nazi Germany in 1935 that defined anyone as Jewish as a separate “race” and enforced racial segregation and discrimination against Jews, stripping them of their citizenship and civil rights.

On 4 December 1941, Kien, his wife Ilse Stránsky and his parents were deported to the Terezín ghetto and transit camp, where he continued to paint and worked in the “drafting office”, which was part of the Technical Department supplying materials for the Jewish Council. Jewish prisoners taught the boys and girls in Terezín. 5,000 children‘s drawings have survived from the painting lessons, many of them from the courses conducted by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Most of the children‘s drawings are archived in the Jewish Museum in Prague. In the “drafting office”, Peter Kien met fellow prisoner Helga Wolfenstein, and a close relationship developed between the two. He wrote the libretto for the opera, The Emperor of Atlantis, as well as poetry and plays.

On 16 October 1944, Kien was deported together with his wife and their parents to Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945), where they were all murdered. Before his deportation from Terezín, Kien had entrusted his drawings to Helga Wolfenstein. She survived the war and told the story of their friendship and artistic complicity.

Peter Kien, Self-portrait, Prague, 1936. Památník Terezín. (Pencil drawing and watercolour on cardboard, 40 × 30 cm, reproduction). Photo/Museum Center for Persecuted Arts

Peter Kien, Self-portrait, caricature with Helga Wolfenstein, Terezín Ghetto, 1941-1944 (Pen and ink drawing on paper, 34 × 24.4 cm, reproduction). Památník Terezín, Photo/Museum Center for Persecuted Arts

Peter Kien, View of Terezín, Terezín Ghetto, 1944 (Gouache on paper 30.2 × 44 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Permanent loan of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Helga Wolfenstein King - Peter Kien Painting at Terezín, Terezín, Ghetto, 1943 (Ink wash on paper. 11 × 13.7 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Acquisition, courtesy of Barbara and Lewis Shrensky, Washington D.C. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Helga Wolfenstein King - Peter Kien Painting at Terezín, Terezín, Ghetto, 1943 (Ink wash on paper. 11 × 13.7 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Acquisition, courtesy of Barbara and Lewis Shrensky, Washington D.C. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Group of artists in the studio of the Weinberg Synagogue, Prague, which Peter Kien (center) ran between 1938 and 1941. Památník Terezín, Photo/Museum Center for Persecuted Arts

Peter Kien, Portrait of Jan Burka Age 16, Prague, 1940 (Oil on canvas, double sided-painting, 54 × 42 cm). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Acquisition, courtesy of the bequest of Friedel Stern. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Peter Kien, Portrait of Ilse Stránská - Kien (1915-1944), Prague, c. 1940 (Oil on canvas, double sided-painting, 54 × 42 cm). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Acquisition, courtesy of the bequest of Friedel Stern. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Boris Lurie

Survivors as Witnesses

Boris Lurie was born in 1924 to a Jewish family in Leningrad and grew up in Riga. He and his father survived several ghettos and concentration camps, including those in Stutthof and Buchenwald. His mother, grandmother, sister and childhood sweetheart were murdered in a mass shooting in the Rumbula forest near Riga in 1941. These experiences had a lasting effect on Boris Lurie’s life and art. In 1946, he immigrated to New York with his father. In 1959, together with a group of artist friends, he founded the NO!art movement, which opposed Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, but above all the commercialization of art, and critically addressed issues such as racism, sexism and consumer culture.

Disseminating the Truth about the Crimes of the Holocaust

Boris Lurie, Portrait of My Mother Before Shooting, 1947 (Oil on canvas, 90 × 65 cm, reproduction). Boris Lurie Art Foundation

Boris Lurie, ca. 1946 (Ink paper 10 × 10.8 cm ). Boris Lurie Art Foundation

Boris Lurie, Prisoners Returning from Work, 1946 (Oil on Masonite, 50 × 70 cm). Boris Lurie Art Foundation

Jonasz Stern

Survivors as Witnesses

In the painting Talith over Kalusc by Jonasz Stern (1904–1988), the prayer shawl hovers over the landscape of the shtetl evoking a burial shroud, or a messenger of death from a painting by Marc Chagall. Of the approximately 7,000 Jews of Kalusc, only seventeen survived the Holocaust - Jonasz Stern was one of them. Stern escaped during a transport to the Bełżec death camp and returned to the Lwów ghetto, renamed the “Lemberg ghetto” by the occupying German forces, where he taught drawing to boys and girls.

On 1 June 1943, during the liquidation of the ghetto, he survived a mass shooting. He was not hit by the bullets and hid among the bodies of those who had been shot. He fled to Budapest and moved to Krakow in 1945. From 1954 to 1974, he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. He participated in the organization of the so-called “Second Krakow Group” and was its chairman for many years. He never forgot his experiences in the Holocaust and recorded them in impressive series of graphics.

Painting the Crimes of the Holocaust

Jonasz Stern, Kalusz in 1942 (Tallith over Kalusz), 1988 (Assemblage on canvas, 90 × 70 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem, Gift of Sonia Dombrowski, Düsseldorf. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Jonasz Stern, Lemberg Ghetto, 1948, titled and dated in pencil, signed in pen (later) “Stern Jonasz” (Woodcuts, 23 × 31.6 cm). MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow

Jonasz Stern, Lemberg Ghetto, 1948, titled and dated in pencil, signed in pen (later) “Stern Jonasz” (Woodcuts, 23 × 31.6 cm). Museum Center for Persecuted Arts

Yehuda Bacon

Dialogue Through Art

Yehuda Bacon was born in 1929 in Moravská Ostrava, Czechoslovakia. In 1942, he and his family were deported to the Terezín ghetto. The adult prisoners organized cultural programs for the children, and Yehuda Bacon was given drawing lessons with other boys and girls. In 1943, he was deported to the “Family Camp” at Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945). In 1944, Bacon was transferred to the men’s camp, and assigned to a group that transported goods to different parts of the camp. As one of the few survivors of the death march to Mauthausen, he was liberated at the Gunskirchen camp. In 1946, he immigrated to Mandate Palestine, where he studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Bacon’s experiences during the Holocaust deeply influenced his art, which expresses not only the suffering of the past, but also his return to life.

Immediately after his liberation, he made small sketches of the crematoria and gas chambers of Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945), which were later used as evidence at the Eichmann trial of 1961, in which he personally testified. He was also a witness at the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, which took place from 1963- 1965. Bacon remained a dedicated educator well into his old age, working to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust would be ingrained in the minds of future generations. His interactions with students, educators and the public have left an indelible mark on Holocaust education. One of his most famous students is the contemporary artist, Sigalit Landau.

16-year-old Yehuda Bacon in Prague in April 1946. Civic Foundation for Persecuted Arts

Witness Testimonies

Yehuda Bacon demonstrated his commitment to justice and the power of eyewitness testimony at the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem (1961) and Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt am Main (1964).

“What does it mean, hope? I knew exactly that like everyone, of course I will die in the end. But still I asked the people from the crematorium, ‘Please tell me your story, please explain to me what that is.‘ And they said, ‘What do you need to know it, nobody will survive here, that’s clear.‘ And I knew that they can burn my body, but in each of us is a part which existed before we were born and will never die.” – Gallery talk between Yehuda Bacon and Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg, Yad Vashem Art Museum, 11 July 2016

Interview with Yehuda Bacon by Julia Riedhammer and Christine Thalmann (rbb. Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) December 2019.

“I was for a long time a teacher, so what does it mean to be a teacher? You give only the text? Or you give a part of yourself? And that‘s the most difficult thing, to educate. When we are young we have to take, but then, we have to give. It‘s like a pipe, you take and you give. And the artist is the one who can deeply go to the roots, to the common roots, and bring them up to the tree of life. I think everyone has a personal duty, [and should ask oneself] what can I do with this life?” – Gallery talk between Yehuda Bacon and Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg, Yad Vashem Art Museum, 11 July 2016

“I had to be a witness. I had to speak for the children who didn‘t survive. I had to do my duty, my responsibility.” – Yehuda Bacon

Drawing of the young Yehuda Bacon

Yehuda Bacon, 1945 On the arm projecting into the picture, Bacon inscribed his own prisoner number: 168194 (Drawing, 20.8 × 29.7 cm). Museum am Dom, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, Before the Transport to Terezín, 1945 (Watercolor and ink on paper, 21.8 × 29.7 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Yehuda Bacon, To the Man who Restored my Belief in Humanity, 1945 (Gouache, black chalk and pencil on paper, 22.1 × 30 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

This work is dedicated to the Czech educator Pitter Přemysl, who worked to save Jewish and non-Jewish children during and after the Holocaust and was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1964.

Yehuda Bacon (Aquarell, 10 × 20 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, Drawing (Ink and watercolor on paper, 15 × 9 cm). Private collection

Yehuda Bacon, Woman with child at the barbed wire fence of a concentration camp (signed Yehuda Bacon) (Drawing, 21.8 × 16.2 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, Recollections from Auschwitz In Remembrance of the 20.5.44 Transport, Crematorium No.3 & 4, The Transport Arrives, 1945 (Charcoal on paper, 23 × 31 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Acquisition, courtesy of the bequest of Friedel Stern. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Yehuda Bacon, Self-portrait, 1946 (Brush in ink on paper, 28.2 × 21 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, Self-portrait with prisoner‘s number, 1946/47 (Brush in ink on paper, 59.8 × 41.3 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, 1946 (Drawing, 29.8 × 22.1 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, (Drawing, 16.3 × 9.7 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

On the second anniversary of his father’s death in Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940-1945), the artist drew a portrait of his father Israel Bacon rising from a smoking chimney. On the right, Bacon noted the exact date and time when his father was murdered, along with some 7,000 other Czech Jews: “22:00 10.VII.44”.

Yehuda Bacon, In Memory of the Czech Transport to the Gas Chambers, 1945–1946 (Charcoal on paper, 41 × 32.5 cm, reproduction). Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Yehuda Bacon, Self-portrait, 1946 (Brush in ink, opaque white on paper, 51 × 38,6 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Yehuda Bacon, Self-portrait, 1948 (Gouache on paper, 41 × 32 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

“And the artist is the one who can deeply go to the roots, to the common roots, and bring them up to the tree of life.” - Yehuda Bacon

Yehuda Bacon, Portrait drawing (signed Yehuda Bacon) (Drawing, 26.8 × 18.8 cm, reproduction). Museum am Dom Würzburg, Diocese of Würzburg, Art Collection Foundation. Photo/Art Collection Foundation

Karel Fleischmann

Teacher of Yehuda Bacon in Terezín

Karel Fleischmann The Food Queue, Terezín Ghetto, 1942 (Watercolor, India ink and wash on paper, 9 × 10.7 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem, Gift of the Prague Committee for Documentation, Prague, courtesy of Ze‘ev and Alisa Shek, Caesarea. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

Sigalit Landau

Generational Impact

Sigalit Landau was born in Jerusalem in 1969 and grew up near the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus. Her father is a survivor of the Nazi labour camp in Bukovina. Her maternal grandparents were Austrian Jewish refugees who immigrated to England and were interned there as enemy aliens. Yehuda Bacon was Sigalit Landau’s first drawing teacher, and she recalls him with much gratitude and affection. Today, she is an influential artist and her work is shown in major museums and venues worldwide. For an exhibition in the German Bundestag in 2015 she created a work of art that, on the one hand, was intended to recall the presentation of the shoes of the murdered that can be seen in the exhibition at the Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Death Camp (1940–1945). On the other hand, the work symbolizes the re-emergence of families from the few survivors of the Holocaust. The installation is entitled, Victory of Memory – Island of Shoes.

An almond tree in full bloom fills the screen. Suddenly the treetop is shaken harshly, the branches arch and bow while petals fall from the flowers, filling the frame and floating through the air to the ground. The branches’ monotonous rocking implements a simple cinematic effect. That which has been shaken, damaged and violated is being repaired. The seamless beauty of art seemingly undoes violence.

The Victory of Memory

“As infants we walk bare feet, free from protection and interruption. But soon this comes to an end. For most of the rest of our lives we walk with our feet wrapped and protected. We recognize the concept of piling of objects and clothing, and especially as Jews it is always a difficult concept to grasp and digest. Piles of shoes, mountains of shoes, picked and ripped out, shoes of grandchildren, grandparents, rabbis, and shoes of hard working people, standing inside them, restless...” – Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau collects hundreds of pairs of shoes and puts them in a pile, as an island, inside the sea of salt. The sea wraps them in countless layers, protects them from another disaster, a perpetual process. Shoes that lived and died, and maybe now will get a new meaning, one with an eternal dimension. Sigalit Landau‘s mountain evokes a memorial, an island of remembrance in a sea of death. It beckons the viewer closer for reflection and meditation. Sigalit Landau created this artwork for the opening exhibition of the Museum Center for Persecuted Arts. It was first shown in the German Bundestag in Berlin in 2015.

Sigalit Landau, Photo of the installation Victory of Memory – Island of Shoes, 2015, (Shoes, Salt, 300 × 300 cm, reproduction). MOCAK Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow

Father and Tufik - Frederick (Simha) Landau, b.1940, Vatra Dornei, Bukovina, Romania

“When Freddy was about three years old, my grandparents discovered to their horror that their son was filching food from their meager store of supplies to feed a dog named Tufik. Freddy’s parents could barely feed Freddy and his older brother, the late Yisrael Landau. I am sure they were furious, and obviously Tufik‘s feeding was summarily stopped. My father used to tell and retell the story of “his” special dog, and would mention this episode throughout my entire childhood. He would imitate his call to the dog, "Tufik, Tufik, nah! Nah!"

Sigalit Landau, Father and Tufik, 2014 (Bronze cast, 22 × 25 × 14 cm, reproduction). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art. Museum, Jerusalem, Gift of the artist. Photo/Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem

This exhibit was launched in November 2023

Local category:
Human Rights